Thoughts to excite, alarm or foil paradigms, senses of humor, and imagination although not always in that order.
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."
-Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988) Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics 1965.

5 Sep 2012 -The Navy has said it will fix the submarine by April 30, 2015,
because the Miami still has 10 years remaining in its roughly 30-year
service life, making it eligible for at least five more deployments. - Navy expected to award EB two major contracts for USS Miami repairs, The New London Day, Jennifer McDermott.

Note: Time alone (through the end of Obama's final term) will reveal the answers

1 ) - The accurate probability analysis predicting the scrapping USS Miami included a possibility of converting the sub to accomodate women crew. Now that Miami is to be scrapped, another SSN sub would have to undergo such alterations to accomodate women crew in order to fulfill SecNav Mabu's promise to have women on SSNs next year (by 2014). Will Mabus go "low-budget" (blaming ongoing sequestration limitations) to squeeze females in as one of the guys? That would certainly be among good guesses.

2 ) - Though not obvious, it is clear SecNav Mabus had pushed for refurbishing USS Miami. Obviously, the choice to repair Miami not only had Mabus's support, put it was being pushed in the final hours of the scrapping decision. How do we kow this? ANSWER: A key admiral has been quoted promising 10 (not 5) five full-length deployments for the Miami's remaining post-repair, 10-year life expectancy.

3) - Repair cost estimates increased as predicted from $450 million to $700 million from unexpected hull cracking. Wrong! It had been expected by submarine metallurgists ever since the fire. In fact, the reason the admiral in 2) increased the promise to 10 deployments was to hold the average cost of deplotment without payroll and operating costs to an average of $70 million. This was a political maneuver. Who was behind it? ANSWER: SecNav Mabus would clearly be suspected among the best possible answers.

4) - Will PNS receive major submarine work in the future without a submariner in command of the shipyard ?

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About Me

Former submariner, later an investigator and audit manager. Currently, in an entrepreneurial mode. I have never missed a chance to vote (except local elections while at sea)and will continue to vote as an independent.